Azir 38% win rate

MasterPrankster·Feb 18, 2015·36 votes·34,763 views

He was my favorite champion, but I think the nerf to his range on W aa make him near unplayable especially in late game. It's ridiculously easy to walk out of range now and since his Q poke his lower, he does almost no damage in lane. He can get maybe one aa in or two with good positioning. Maybe three if he burns his entire kit. Thats like 300 damage and half his mana.

Please compensate. Maybe adding range and lowering his early base damage on the AA or lowering Q damage even more. Please.

For shurima?

108 Comments

RiotMeddlerFeb 19, 201537 votes

We're working on some Azir buffs at the moment, the recent nerfs hit him harder than intended. It's very likely, though not guaranteed yet, that those changes will include adding at least some range back onto his W.

Odds are high those buffs will be in the 5.5 patch (5.4's already locked so we can't do the next patch, we would like to get these out as soon as feasible though).

ThryaleFeb 19, 20157 votes

wait, so that means that the veigar changes are locked too? Is riot really satisfied with the E nerfs despite both testers and non-testers alike saying that .75secs is just too long of a delay?

RiotMeddlerFeb 19, 201555 votes

The Veigar changes for 5.4 are locked. Directionally we believe a delay on Veigar's E is essential to making Veigar healthy (so that we can be happy if he's strong and popular, rather than definitely having to nerf him if that happens). If that delay does prove to be too long we'll reduce it, given it's much harder to shut Veigar's laning down given the extra range and shorter CD on his Q however that delay's our best estimate on appropriate for the upcoming patch.

KeevalroyFeb 19, 201589 votes

How is the delay essential for counterplay when we have champions like Zed Leblanc Yasuo Nidalee LeeSin and Kalista who NEED to be locked down instantly? Do you honestly expect they're going to get caught in the E that takes .75 seconds to activate?? Mobility is an issue that is NOT being addressed by Riot, and this delay added to his E is laughing at the problem.

Edit: How about Katarina who can now be picked into him and get her kill combo off on you or your team before the clutch stun to stop her ult? Instant AoE stuns aren't good for League's health unless it's used to stop the rampant mobility creep you've created and done nothing about other than highlight them in your #BigPlays clips.

RetillinFeb 19, 201539 votes

Point and click hard CC is the ONLY counter play to high mobility if the champion you are playing has no mobility. (ie Veigar) This is the main problem with mobility creep. Riot is accelerating the rate of mobility creep by taking out the ONLY thing that counters it. Basically it is saying "play our hyper cool LCS champs or you are going to lose your games".

This is it, I tried to defend Meddler and Ghostcrawler. But I'm done. This is stupid as shit. If the "balance" team thinks this is good then the "balance" team if full of idiots.

edit: There is a reason the LCS games seem to be taking longer and have lower kills this season. It's not the skill level of the players. It's the fact that every damn champion has built in safety. Lee, Zed, LB, Liss, Gnar, Kalista, ect... have so much mobility that you can't catch them. You can't punish them for bad plays. With the removal of point and click CC this only gets worse and worse.

LOL SpammerFeb 19, 20155 votes

That's just the thing right there, ATM Veigar has little to no counters, adding the delay to his e makes him a rounder champion and he has more counters. He is still stronger then some of the weaker champions, plus the since they gave him a larger range he doesn't need to get in so close to burst someone, cs, or even poke. Now instead of being a 100-0 burst champ he might be 100-50 because he won't get a guaranteed stun. Before this last patch veigar required little skill now the players will need to time his stun.

FatedTitanFeb 19, 201523 votes

Just...no. Do you even play Veigar? Maybe you main Karthus, since that's the only champ Veigar really just demolished. He is countered by almost every meta mid laner out there.

RetillinFeb 19, 201518 votes

It is amazing how many people think Veigar "has no counter". If he's farming with his Q he can't trade. So his entire kit is 100-0. That's fine if they wish to change it. But you better give him 2 mobility and 3 utility spells to catch him up to the other strong mid lanners.

JamnonFeb 20, 20158 votes

It isn't about making Veigar healthy. it's about giving the champs you listed chances to make LC$ big plays.

Chromatic EagleFeb 19, 20156 votes

Why not speed up the W?

DirewolfiezFeb 19, 20158 votes

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/250x250/59193348.jpg

DirewolfiezFeb 19, 20155 votes

The fact that nobody realized that this was a joke makes me sad.

dsr085Feb 24, 20151 votes

pbe tester said that hundreds of times

MVP TwiZzFeb 19, 201518 votes

35% winrate Veigar incoming :) this stun was the most dificult to place perfectly and now, it'll just be impossible. With this change, all the Veigar's player are going to be 0/6 against any assassins. GG rito

FatedTitanFeb 19, 201511 votes

That's optimistic of you.

ThryaleFeb 19, 20156 votes

especially since (prior to the fizz nerfs) I could get 6 kills against a veigar with fizz easy.

RetillinFeb 19, 20152 votes

You mean because you can troll-pole his ult? Same thing I do vs Veigar as Zed.

ThryaleFeb 19, 20153 votes

not really. sure, that's one way to cheese veig, but I rarely even have to worry about his ult to begin with. Most veigs struggle with farming early adn don't bother to harass, so I can just exploit that by harassing him and zoning him out of his farm and even harass him under tower.

By the time I hit 6, veig is a free kill every time my ult is up, and if I got a few kills off of him before 6, I'll buy an early spectre's cowl to make his ult worthless. (it's only 250 base dmg, and by lvl 6, veig doesn't have more than 100 ap anyway, so a spectre's cowl will mean veig would be lucky to do more than 200 dmg to me with his ult)

El SeibzehnFeb 20, 20156 votes

Man I would be so happy if he can actually make it to 35% winrate with this change. With these changes I wonder why they didn't just remove his w and e altogether since they won't do anything anyway.

Karn BishopFeb 19, 201510 votes

Then can you disable veigar or allow whoever picked veigar to select a different champion the moment someone locks in zed, leblanc, yasuo, nidalee, lee sin, or katarina?

You can't say with a straight face that veigar will ever win any of those match ups with the new changes to his abilities.

I'm probably just going to ban veigar so people don't try playing him in ranked because he got changes so he must be better right? mentality.

FatedTitanFeb 19, 201510 votes

Already prepared to ban him just so no one on my team uses him.

El SeibzehnFeb 20, 20154 votes

I'm going to ban him so that I don't ever have the temptation to lose with him.

RetillinFeb 19, 201510 votes

Wow this is very disappointing. Even the players on the PBE say how much the delay has made Veigar a walking kill for everyone else.

Here is something I wish Riot would understand.

If a large number of champions have good mobility, then point and click CC is the ONLY counter to that play style if your champion (Veigar in this case) has no mobility.

And you talk about "counter play". But isn't part of the "counter play" being smart with your moves? Setting others up to kill them instead. You know, having the game knowledge to watch your lane opponent and figure out how to beat him instead of just pressing R on Zed and calling it good?

I mean you even have a HIDDEN nerf to Kalista in the PBE right now to curb her mobility... isn't that proof enough that mobility creep is real and point and click cc is needed?

It's also disappointing that this Veigar non change from the PBE means that the PBE doesn't matter....

ThryaleFeb 19, 20151 votes

that's not a hidden nerf. riot has already announced that they were nerfing kalista's aa animation and how it is affected by atkspd

RetillinFeb 19, 20153 votes

They said they were looking into it. It wasn't on any of the PBE details when released.

Curling VeigarFeb 19, 201518 votes

{quoted}

Shorter CD on his Q

Is this a joke?

ThryaleFeb 19, 201517 votes

yes, yes it is. the q cd is actually longer. 5 secs instead of 4

Baaad JujuFeb 23, 20152 votes

By a 1v1 standpoint its a longer cooldown. Q can hit 2 targets, so in a 1v1 the cooldown is longer. From the standpoint of a teamfight,Its pretty likely and reasonable to assume that youll be able to hit atlesat 3 targets for every 2 Q's you sling out. In which case makes it 3 Q's worth of damage in 10 seconds instead of 12. Making it a resonable buff for late game. But late game isn't veigars issue. Veigar's issue is laning phase and how to transition out of it. Which is largely 1v1 (talking about mid lane)

A Dove Like YouFeb 20, 20153 votes

You forgot about the casting delay as well, which is .25 seconds, that actually bumps the total time for the stun to come out a full second after you press the key... the amount of things that can happen in 1 second is ridiculous, Talon can get off his full combo, so can zed, Syndra might be close to being able to, nidalee can almost get off her damage portion of her kit in that time, Draven can crit you twice and kill you, i can keep going on and on but you get the idea

Nausicäa Feb 19, 20153 votes

{quoted}

We're working on some Azir buffs at the moment, the recent nerfs hit him harder than intended. It's very likely, though not guaranteed yet, that those changes will include adding at least some range back onto his W.

Odds are high those buffs will be in the 5.5 patch (5.4's already locked so we can't do the next patch, we would like to get these out as soon as feasible though).

Meddler why not just allow his solider range to scale with ranges of W?.

Lynbro SenpaiFeb 19, 20155 votes

Scaling range is generally seen as confusing to players, making it hard to judge a spells threat. Tristana is the only champion who's range scales I think, but Riot avoid it if they can.

AbyssphereFeb 19, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lynbro Senpai,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6AclnukN,comment-id=000800030000,timestamp=2015-02-19T07:07:50.952+0000)

Scaling range is generally seen as confusing to players, making it hard to judge a spells threat. Tristana is the only champion who's range scales I think, but Riot avoid it if they can.

She's not quite the only one, you also get Zac's slingshot scaling with range and Syndra's ultimate increasing range upon maxing. Probably the closest example to Azir however is Jinx, whose rocket launcher scales up by 25 range on each rank.

I say if Jinx can do it then so can Azir. People appreciate Jinx's range getting bigger as the game gets on, so they should appreciate the range on Azir's soldiers doing the same.

Lynbro SenpaiFeb 19, 20152 votes

Hmm, forgot about them. Well, we'll see if they consider it then.

RrettFeb 19, 20156 votes

hahaha asking the current balance team to actually balance.

They aren't competent ya' know?

KilaneFeb 19, 20153 votes

Than intended? How could you not know that it's too hard on PBE? Who play on Azir's nerf? Do they even have good knowledge of Azir? what ELO are they?

Do player in PBE lost anything for if they lose a game in PBE? Do they just "OH THE NERF IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH! GUT HIM!" and you guys just do whatever they say?

Base on you guys reasonings. the range of W soldiers should have stayed the same and make W AP ratio becomes +0.4/0.45/0.5/0.55/0.6 as W is leveled up.

But I guess it's too late to revert the 400 range because I heard Riot NEVER admit the mistake.

Stars ShaperFeb 19, 20152 votes

You might reconsider your approach to what you do to "over the top" champions. You seem to hit them harder than intended each time and always by gimping a mechanic that wasn't problemathic at all (See: Azir W range, Yasuo run speed/hp, Kassa R range (it's clear enough that is a stupid change) and Pantheon R range in some old PBE).

This strikes them much also because the mechanics involved aren't even discussed or anticipated as a factor needed to be changed, it looks like you are brainstorming on Live servers.

EyrgosFeb 19, 20153 votes

{quoted}

We're working on some Azir buffs at the moment, the recent nerfs hit him harder than intended. It's very likely, though not guaranteed yet, that those changes will include adding at least some range back onto his W.

Odds are high those buffs will be in the 5.5 patch (5.4's already locked so we can't do the next patch, we would like to get these out as soon as feasible though).

The numbers nerfs were a bit too extreme... cut those nerfs in half & that's fine.

The range nerf was overboard by a landslide... at least until you fix the power creep on other champions like how you continue to purposefully neglect doing anything about Lee Sin which' practically unethical at this point.

Knight SoIaire Feb 19, 20156 votes

the recent nerfs hit him harder than intended.

i have to disagree, i just think your nerfs hit him as hard as they intended

the main reason you gave us for the nerf was that azir bullies lanes too hard for the late game he competes

the thing is that you nerfed only the things that made him a hypercarry while you didnt touch anything essential to his lane bullying

Q - Conquering Sands BASE DAMAGE75/105/135/165/195 magic damage ⇒65/85/105/125/145 magic damage

the more levels azir attains the more damage he loses so change hurts mianly late game while he loses wery little to his lanebullying with this change

W - Arise! SOLDIER STAB RANGE~400 ⇒ ~325 (we're marking them as approximate values because they get very complicated) TOWER BOMB DAMAGEThe tooltip values were incorrectly saying +0.6 ability power (it's actually 0.7). 90 + (15 x level) (0.7 ability power) ⇒ 50 + (10 x level) (0.4 ability power)

azirs main bully combo is -get close -pop a soldier -auto with a soldier -use q for slow and damage -auto with soldier again since enemy cant back off during that slow

those changes barely even touch it what they touch is that his soldiers are easily evaded late game, his only way to safely launch them into the fight is his q, until next q they are stationary , so again a nerf intended to hit the late game

tower bomb got again hit to deal less damage with the ap azir stacks up meaning late game nerf, and the levels azir gets so again late game nerf

im copying from surrender at 20 "Enhancing Azir's end-game effectiveness goes well with our intended goals for the sand mage, so we're softening his spikes to achieve a more manageable lane along with a little bump to his AD to help him last-hit when his soldiers are slacking off. Which they do. Often."

the main thing that infuriates people is the fact that your reasons for the nerf or buff or any change are rarely compatible with the change itself you say you want azirs lane to be weaker and you nerf only his late you say that mordekaiser needs a compensation and you nerf him you say that veigar needs a compansation and you also nerf him (why not just say he is up for a rework) kassadins ult is his core identity, suddenly a nerf on the pbe

its not nice towards your community when your actions dont match your words your words are the best thing that this community can get, but the actions must follow them

otherwise there will be a backlash every day

KilaneFeb 19, 20152 votes

He can only do dmg to champs that stay in his soldier radius. Even with a Q, the slow only as a sec to get another AA in. Azir should NEVER gets close until the right time of chaos where he can disrupt enemy with his ult.

If the would make his AP raiot on W to start with +0.4 all the way to +0.6 when max instead of touch his soldier nerf, it would have been consistent to what they say and actualy tone down his bully dmg.

MasterPranksterFeb 19, 20152 votes

I've been having a bad day and seeing this post made it a million times better.

Thanks for the good news Meddler, i'm looking forward to the 5.5 PBE notes. I'll consider this thread closed but let it roam around for others to see. You don't have to join... BUT YOU MUST WITNESS Azir

Penguin EclipseFeb 19, 20154 votes

{quoted}

...the recent nerfs hit him harder than intended...

I don't mean to come off sounding like an ass. But you are starting to sound like a broken record. Overnerfing has become a common trend in LoL and this is causing the game's balance to be the butt of jokes only it's not so funny anymore.

What exactly is intended by these nerfs? Because it seems the community warns these nerfs are too much yet these crippling nerfs go out on regular basis anyway and literally ruin champions. And then many times those broken champions just lay there in disrepair or get some insignificant buffs that don't really accomplish anything. Like the latest Elise buffs.

60cG25XEnHFeb 20, 20151 votes

Azir's 400 range AA was fine. It was the SCALING. Just add back the range and reduce his mana costs with making his mana regen scaling per level decreased a little. His q only needs a little buff. (IT WAS INSANE BEFORE NERF).

AquariusGineFeb 18, 201510 votes

He was very strong, now he is unplayable. Riot should have shifted his power instead of downright nerfing him so harshly

Sypher The PoroFeb 18, 20154 votes

I love Azir, I love the idea behind Azir, but hate how he is in-game. My idea to fix his would be to slightly increase his soldier range, and increase the range by which Azir can order his soldiers. Right now you have to be in almost auto attack range to do anything.

Irelia BotFeb 18, 20152 votes

It is the sense of feeling helpless against a champ that sometimes gets them nerfed.

Also from what I was seeing he was being picked or banned in basically all regions for competitive play. That might have something to do with it.

ZephyrDrakeFeb 18, 20159 votes

[{quoted}](name=Irelia Bot,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6AclnukN,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-02-18T16:40:28.762+0000)

It is the sense of feeling helpless against a champ that sometimes gets them nerfed.

Also from what I was seeing he was being picked or banned in basically all regions for competitive play. That might have something to do with it.

well the competitive scene doesn't play on the latest patches. It's always a patch or two behind so Azir's nerfs haven't been applied yet so they are playing with pre-nerf Azir

DrukyulFeb 18, 20152 votes

Lower the Q base damage more, bring back the soldier range, lower the ultimate damage, and increase Azir's base AS slightly. Then we'll have a real consistent damage dealing mage instead of yet another wannabe burst mage.

CopelandoFeb 18, 20157 votes

Lower the Q damage more? It's already 140 when maxed, which is nothing.

His ultimate damage is fine. What would you lower it to? 50 damage?

RaptameiFeb 18, 20151 votes

"Winrate doesn't matter " -community about Lee Sin and before that, Leblanc.

MasterPranksterFeb 18, 20158 votes

38% must mean he's super hard to play, which he isn't. It's just relocating your soldiers and right clicking. He's relatively simple after figuring out his kinks, but this is ridiculous. Literally only one in the 30 percentile right now. Zed has a 45% win rate but apparently he's dominating Bronze V.